Today's News

Live From Frankfurt: Phobias, Math and Zoos Among The Hot Topics
by Matthew Thornton and Karen Holt
Day three in Frankfurt saw a number of new deals struck. Among them: Gitty Daneshvari´s School of Fear was preempted by Little, Brown Books for Young Readers in a deal negotiated by Sarah Burnes at the Gernert Company, who sold North American rights for two books for a very significant advance. Rights to the proposed YA series were sold in Spain and France prior to the fair, and today German and Italian rights were preempted. A U.K. deal is forthcoming.

Burnes just took on the debut author one week ago; the L.A.-based Daneshvari traveled to New York last week to find a literary agent after CAA´s Shari Smiley negotiated film rights to the series with Academy Award winning producer Graham King and Warner Brothers. Burnes made the subsequent book deals on the strength of a partial manuscript and a synopsis of the rest of the series.Read on »

 Al Gore Shares Nobel Peace Prize
By Karen Holt
Former United States Vice President Albert Gore will share the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, an honor his publisher is calling not only a well-deserved recognition for the man, but affirmation of the power of books.

"When we sat down with Al Gore, we asked about him why he wanted to write a book. He said because books have the power to affect the public conversation more than any other form of media in America," said Steve Murphy, publisher of Rodale Books. Rodale published the bestselling An Inconvenient Truth and will publish Gore´s next title, The Path to Survival, in May 2008. In 2006, Rodale reissued a paperback version of Gore´s 1992 Houghton Mifflin title, Earth in the Balance. Gore is also the author of Assault on Reason (Penguin Press 2007). Read On »

Norton Acquires Graphic Work by Small  
By Calvin Reid
W.W. Norton has acquired world rights, except for Canada, to Stitches, an unusual graphic memoir that incorporates illustrations and prose by the award-winning children's author and illustrator David Small. The work was acquired by Norton executive editor Robert Weil in "a strong six-figure" deal in an auction conducted by Small's agent, Holly McGhee.

The book recounts the disturbing story of Small's childhood in the 1950s. The son of a radiologist, Small tells the story of his bizarre and abusive father, a childhood that left him figuratively and literally speechless, and his escape from home at age 16. Weil said the book is primarily graphic and supported by prose. This is the third major graphics work acquired by Weil, who has also acquired the works of acclaimed comics artists R. Crumb and Will Eisner. Read On »

Litquake Rocks San Francisco
By Bridget Kinsella
If it’s October in San Francisco, it must be Litquake. For the past eight years, authors have gathered for readings and other events in a San Francisco literary festival called Litquake, which opened last Saturday and runs through this Saturday. Last year, the festival drew 10,000 attendees.

This year the festival opened up with the first Barbary Coast Award for a Lifetime of Literary Achievement given to Armistead Maupin. Actress Laura Linney, who was in the 1994 PBS series of Maupin’s 1976 novel Tales of the City presented Maupin with the award. Litquake codirectors Jane Ganahl and Jack Boulware both said that Maupin was the unanimous choice of the award selection committee. “He really put San Francisco on the map in a whole new way,” said Boulware. Read On »

AAP Indie Meeting Set for BEA in ’08
The AAP is moving next year’s annual meeting and educational seminar for small and independent presses to Los Angeles, where it will be held in conjunction with BookExpo America. In past years, the AAP/SIP program was held in conjunction with the AAP March annual meeting in New York. AAP CEO Pat Schroeder said the change in location “speaks to our desire to reach out to small and independent presses outside of New York, so moving to Los Angeles in 2008 was a natural.” BEA’s trade show will run May 29-June 1, and the AAP/SIP meeting will be held on the first day of the event.

Blogs

Monday's Reviews Today

Sophomore D’Souza & A Referee’s Mob Stint
In Tony D’Souza’s The Konkans, a follow-up to his lauded 2006 debut novel Whiteman, the young author delivers a “moving portrait” of an Indian-American family that manages to “put a fresh spin on the theme of cultural alienation.” And, testifying to the adage that fact often is stranger than fiction (or at least more unbelievable), is Bob Delaney’s Covert: My Years Infiltrating the Mob. This account, written with journalist Dave Schieber, is from an NBA referee who, in a prior career as a state trooper went undercover to try and bust one of New Jersey’s biggest crime families. Our review says it “will be a must-read for those drawn to Joe Pistone’s similar account in Donnie Brasco. Read On »

Authors on the Air

Zoe Style; Cooking Vegetarian; Cheech the School Bus Driver
This morning on The Early Show, celebrity stylist Rachel Zoe displayed Style A to Zoe: The Art of Fashion, Beauty, & Everything Glamour (Grand Central Publishing, $24.99). Read On »

Picture of the Day

Freckleface Frenzy
Vanity Fair and Bloomsbury sponsored a private party at Lord & Taylor in New York last month to raise money for Reach Out and Read, one of actress and author Julianne Moore's long-time charities, and The Festival of Children. Moore, seen reading to a packed house, is set for a Today Show appearance next week to support Freckleface Strawberry, which Bloomsbury is releasing October 16.

Job of the Day

PW Virtual Edition

To access the latest issue of Publishers Weekly no matter where you are, be sure to take a look at PW's Virtual Edition -- available online anytime. If you're not already a subscriber, take a look at a sample issue here.